CIERA JULIA

Photo by Dynasty Marie

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​A voice as pure as rain and a mosaic depth bridge the gap between singer/songwriter Ciera Julia’s Indie Rock sound and her intimate confessions. Emerging from the Nashville music scene by-way-of New Jersey’s South Coast, her music reflects the journey that has found her walking in her shoes today. 
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Ciera’s debut album Who We Are, out July 2020, is her introduction at only twenty-five years old. Exemplifying transition into adulthood and the knots that become untangled in the process, she expresses, “Many people my age feel the weight of society. It’s taken me a while, but I think I’m finally done being so angry.” 

Recorded at Nashville's OmniSound Studios in collaboration with good friends, the five-song project has a theme of crossroads woven throughout; within her tender vocals, Ciera’s honesty is crystal clear. The album’s title track and the oldest composition, “Who We Are,” follows her first relationship after coming out as a queer woman. “This song flew out of me when I wrote it. Sometimes it’s hard to walk away from something that you’ve built, but in the end I had to tell myself the truth.” This motif of reflecting on the past is found in nearly every track on the album. Ciera’s music echoes the lessons she has learned staring down the unknown with bright eyes.

“Rope” is the album’s introductory single, opening with distorted guitar and a driving pulse. The last song to make the cut, it presents a heavy metaphor for the weight of student loan debt on mental health. It derives from a pressure Ciera felt in realizing the high price of her life’s passion. She expresses, “This song is about understanding that sometimes it’s not easy. I just do what I can and continue to make the music that I can and often can’t afford, because it’s what keeps me sane.”

Co-produced by Louis Remenapp and Jeremy Bernstein, Ciera’s Bachelor’s Degree from Berklee College of Music allowed her to build the album on a sonic foundation envisioned from the moment each song was written. Graduating from Charter Tech High School for the Performing Arts, she developed a deeply rooted relationship with music from a young age, singing at Carnegie Hall with her advanced choir at only fifteen years old.
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Who We Are is a powerful nod to Ciera’s past, present and future, as she stands directly in the crossroads. It mirrors her indie influences such as Death Cab For Cutie, Phoebe Bridgers and Pinegrove, and came to life by the hands of her friends and colleagues. These five songs are engraved deep in her soul and this is heard in Ciera’s powerful voice, lyrics and untouched sound.